20 or so years ago I started having all sorts of problems with work and my personality changing and a mate said to me "Cobber you better speak to someone about whatever is chewing you up" anyway still thinking it was not really me but the rest of the world a chap at the Vietnam Vets said to me "mate I can get you in to see a psychologist and I think you had better go"...
So of I trot to the prearranged appointment and had an hour chat with a guy who did ask some rather probing and frankly intimate questions and then he says "I think you have PTSD, i'll book you in to see a Psychiatrist" Ok so that appointment rolls around and this guys gets me to fill in a few reams of paperwork and we were having a chat and he says, "look to get to the bottom of what is causing you this grief would you submit to hypnosis?" Yeah Ok ( im thinking this blokes a right tosser) ok so I remeber looking at the clock on the wall behind him its 3:10pm next think the clock says 3:55..... He has copious quantities of notes and sends me on my way to return a week later, not to stress out and to take the drugs he had prescribed. The drugs turned me into a zombie, I couldnt even think let alone drive a car...
At the return visit he goes thru his notes and what I had apparentlay said under hypnosis... There was lots of stuff there he had dredged up from some where deep in my subconscious that I had filed away never to allow to surface but it had. So he makes his diagnosis of PTSD and puts me off work, eventually I get dismissed for "war related illness" and since I have worn out 3 Psychologists but now I know what the problem is I get along very nicely.
I returned to Vietnam earlier this year after 40 years and wish I had gone back sooner. Of course a lot has changed but I had a brilliant young girl as a guide who had a clear acetate map of the "old" she laid over the "new". Around Nui dat there are clear landmarks, the rock that stood outside the HQ is still there, all the roads are still there but simply over grown, the Airstrip is now the main road of the Village. I was a Sapper and Tunnel warfare was my Forte, the guide took me back to Phoc long where we used to train in the tunnel complex. Now that was interesting, not so much actually being in the tunnels but the emotional overload when we crawled out and had a rest. Anyway the rest of that day it was an emotional rollercoaster, I expected the locals to have some degree of animosity but it was totally the reverse, given the red carpet treatment and treated with a degree of reverance I'd never expected or for that matter actually wanted.... The entire trip to Vietnam was a cathartic experience for me....

Thanks for sharing Trev. I guess there are many many Vietnam Vets in your position. I'm glad you have learned to manage.
I've never been, but people say Vietnam is beautiful and the people more so.

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Yes its a great place far better than China though China has some wonders of the world that are not in Vietnam but I found China just to restricitve, censored internet couldnt even post to my travel blog a lot of the time...

Thanks for sharing Trev. I guess there are many many Vietnam Vets in your position. I'm glad you have learned to manage.

I've never been, but people say Vietnam is beautiful and the people more so.

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Yes its a great place far better than China though China has some wonders of the world that are not in Vietnam but I found China just to restricitve, censored internet couldnt even post to my travel blog a lot of the time...

Im going to go back to Vietnam....

My brother went back a few years ago.
It did something to him,.
In a good way.
He loved it

That was cogent, and challenging for me to read, Trev. My number didn't come out of the barrel, although I'd already watched Harold Holt proclaim all the way with LBJ.

I would vote to see you be given real time on the ABC, Australian Story or Jane Hutcheon's One On One. But maybe you first need to write the book and you can write. A Vietnam vet friend died two weeks ago. Cancer. He loved American flat picking and fingerpicking guitar and luthiery. My late dad was in Vietnam, PR for the RAAF. He said greasy agent orange was everywhere, on the toilet seat.